BRIGHT IDEAS! Attracting Customers with Creative Strategies for Personal Visibility Marketing. Tell a Friend Do you like to share great stuff with your friends? You know, that little Italian restaurant you found, an unbelievable sale, a stock tip, a helpful website, a funny story you heard, etc. For most of us, the only thing better than finding something wonderful is being the one to introduce someone else to it. Make it easy for your customers to tell their friends about you.

Here are a few ways to do so:
First of all, let them know that you would like them to tell their friends. Yes, many of them will think of it on their own. But others won't. They will, however, be receptive to your suggestion.

Always have lots of business cards around, and give a supply to anyone who is interested in giving them out. Giving your business card is one of the easiest ways for someone to recommend you.

Have special business cards printed for your "Tell a Friend" promotion. Make a place on the card for your customer to write his or her name – something like "(Blank) recommends . . ." or "Thought you might be interested. (Blank)" Give a couple cards to every customer. And leave a supply on your desk or sales counter. Announce a reward for referrals. Give a discount, or free product or service to your customer when someone does business with you and says that customer referred them.

Make up coupons for your customers to give to friends. I recently bought one of those new Swiffer mops. Inside the package was a coupon booklet. I got a coupon for a discount off replacement cloths for the mop, and they also gave me three coupons for a few dollars off the basic Swiffer kit. I'm supposed to put my name and address on them and give them to friends. When they redeem the coupons, the company will send me more coupons for $2 off the replacement cloths. My friends win, and so do I.

Online, use a "tell a friend" box so visitors to your website can tell others about you. You can code one, ask your web designer to create one for you, or use one of the free services. I just added Recommend-It(r) <http> to my site for this purpose. (I'm not endorsing them, they happen to be the one I found and I'm giving them a try.) There are buttons on several pages in my site, as well as this link I can include in email: Do You Like - - - - - - - ? Recommend-It(r) to a Friend! <http>
Get your customers talking. If each one tells two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends . . .well, you know!